Bob, today is June 20, is it not? Yes, it is, but this year, Father’s Day and Juneteenth coincide AND today is the official observance of our newest federal holiday. So let’s do Juneteenth today.

Here’s what I wrote last year, and it still holds:

When we consider that June 19th (“Juneteenth”), 1865, marks the officially celebrated end of slavery in the United States, it’s a day that should be remembered. Two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation and two months after General Lee surrendered at Appomattox, union forces landed at Galveston, Texas, to announce the end of slavery. (For more detail see this blog and its references, as well as this post from Breakpoint.)

We often forget that the God we claim to worship is on the side of the poor and oppressed. Recall what I wrote a couple of days ago: we’re all in this together. Look what Jesus said:

He came to Nazareth where he had been reared. As he always did on the Sabbath, he went to the meeting place. When he stood up to read, he was handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. Unrolling the scroll, he found the place where it was written, God’s Spirit is on me; he’s chosen me to preach the Message of good news to the poor, Sent me to announce pardon to prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, To set the burdened and battered free, to announce, “This is God’s year to act!” He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the assistant, and sat down. Every eye in the place was on him, intent. Then he started in, “You’ve just heard Scripture make history. It came true just now in this place.” Luke 4.16 – 21, MSG, emphasis mine)

John, meanwhile, had been locked up in prison. When he got wind of what Jesus was doing, he sent his own disciples to ask, “Are you the One we’ve been expecting, or are we still waiting?” Jesus told them, “Go back and tell John what’s going on: The blind see, The lame walk, Lepers are cleansed, The deaf hear, The dead are raised, The wretched of the earth learn that God is on their side.” (Matthew 11.2 – 5, MSG, emphasis mine)